Sublime Group Ltd is increasing its presence in the media business by seeking to acquire NewsRoom from NZX, says Craig Pellett, CEO of Sublime Group (www.sublimegroup.net). The NewsRoom acquisition is expected to be formally completed shortly.

“Our acquisition of NewsRoom is designed to support our recent investment in and restructuring plans for Scoop Holdings Ltd, which owns Scoop.co.nz,” says Craig Pellett.

“The acquisition is a clear indication that we are committed to being a serious player in the online media sector in New Zealand.”

“NewsRoom is both separate from but also highly complementary to Scoop’s suite of products and when the two are formally aligned under a common legal and management structure together they will provide a strong foundation for future growth. That is our intention, subject to agreement by the board and shareholders of Scoop Holdings Ltd,” he says.

Scoop was a breakaway from Newsroom over a decade ago, and so it is interesting they have ended up back together again. I suspect they’ll merge at some point.

A related challenge is that both media outlets will now be under the effective control of Selwyn Pellett, a prominent Labour activist and donor. How will they deal with editorial independence?

nickb

This genuinely concerns me. Seeing photos of the editor of the Press and Lianne Dalziel on holiday together shortly after the election campaign, when there were serious questions raised by various people about whom was featured and showcased in tThe Press (only Dalziel’s candidates) to the exclusion of all others.

We need a fair press and The Press. There is no Q. choices made by The Press absolutely affected the result.

See Alastair Thompson’s name has disappeared from the steering committee listed on the PIJ site http://pij.org.nz/intro/

PIJ=Public Interest Journalism Aotearoa New Zealand

A side issue is the apparent attempt by a number of organisations and a party or two to push an renaming of New Zealand. I’m not against ‘Aotearoa’ as a name, but renaming our country should only be done with popular support, not by agenda pushing.

Nostalgia-NZ

nickb nails it, why do they need to be independent. Even if they were there’d be continued allegations that they weren’t. And is the question only about political independence to ignore how political parties, business project interests and so all try to ‘manipulate’ their position in the public mind. Not all the reading public have equilibrium problems that cause them to lean right or left as the read paragraph by paragraph through a editorial, most are sophisticated and educated enough to see the snares, traps and sweeteners. The bloody ‘political’ media take themselves too seriously with some having more absorbent minds of ‘self’ propaganda than the ‘market and readers’ they target.

BeaB

I enjoy partisan journalism as long as the politics are made clear. There’s far too much duplicity and pretence in NZ media.

This morning the Waikato Times had a serious photo of David Cunliffe alongside one of the PM with his tongue out. Their message is obvious. Mind you, it is such a superficial and poorly written rag it’s hardly worth the money.

Cato

Thanks for the non-sequitur CG. Not a bad read – but I am genuinely interested in your statement that: “the Conservatives are also anti-abortion…”

If that were true, it might point to the CCCP being a coherent conservative party rather than a “Colin Craig” party. However, I remembered Pete George, the other resident Colin Craig obsessive, reported a while back that CC had said that he supported a right to abortion provided the mother received independent medical advise first.

Although it wasn’t stated it’s quite clear what the political inclinations are of this “freelance writer and poet”. After blah blah Key, blah blah Peters, blah blah Dotcom, blah blah Cunliffe…

Of course the Greens are the bogeymen, for one simple reason: They’re right.

They might be mocked as “loony left”, but they’re really a pro-environment party with a social conscience. So unless simply having a social conscience is left wing, it’s a false label: you can be any political colour and support the environment.

That’s what scares all the other parties, including the “blue browns” of the Maori Party: a Green future implies real change, not just tinkering and shadow-plays. They’ll stop at nothing to prevent that change, because a Green future makes them all redundant.

If a bill proposed a ban on abortion I would be surprised. There is an attempt to introduce such a law in Poland at the moment but even in a country that is 97% catholic it is struggling to get through. Practically I can’t see how it can work.
I think we can make some real changes for the better (of both woman and child) in this area and so I would probably talk with the private member and see if we couldn’t work on something a bit more practical like “free and informed consent” such as they have in Western Europe for example.

SCOOP MEDIA LIMITED inc 4 June 1999 has 25 share holders Alastair Luke THOMPSON is the director and the company is set to be struck off due to not filing a return.

SCOOP SUBSCRIBER SERVICES LIMITED is about the suffer the same fate its share holder is Scoop media and director Thompson

Scoop Holdings Limited was set up 23 September 2013 its share holders include sublime Group and storm distribution, the Pellet family and Mr & Mrs Thompson are the directors , the company is largely owned by the Pellets through various companies .

Scoop Holdings is a share holder of scoop media service incorporated 3 December 2013, director of scoop media are the same as for scoop holdings.

the web site scoop.co.nz is registerd to Newsroom Net NZ Ltd. which is the name scoop media used until 28 June 1999 when the name was changed . ( how about an update in domain registration ) ..

We don’t swap out names , some of us might change our names for some reason but some how companies can assume each others names – the best example I have ever seen of identity confusion in companies is that of Waikato electricity limited , well networks and Wel energy group , you will go dizzy trying to find out who is who at what given time .

The whole point is that companies which have closed are no longer in existence and are not the same company as one which is being purchased

Scoop media and news room were two companies set up by the same group of people, one grew into greater a share holding and the other was stuck off .

Each is a separate legal entity and like people , are individuals, they too are ” legal ” individuals and must not be considered one and the same just because they share a name.

Identity fraud amongst companies is prolific in NZ due largely to the use of trading names. You must always check the companies register.

so in summary we have two lots of scoops the one who runs the web site and the new company which has set up in 2013

you have to be very careful in refereing to any of them as scoop as scoop the web site only refers to scoop media which is about to be struck off.

MH

iMP (1,953 comments) says:
January 25th, 2014 at 9:11 am
This genuinely concerns me. Seeing photos of the editor of the Press and Lianne Dalziel on holiday together shortly after the election campaign, when there were serious questions raised by various people about whom was featured and showcased in The Press (only Dalziel’s candidates) to the exclusion of all others.

We need a fair press and The Press. There is no Q. choices made by The Press absolutely affected the result.
end quote

to IMP , everyone knows the Press do, dominate elections here in Christchurch, and that is because we are stupid, yes we are stupid, we are poor, and we are followers.

I’m not surprised to see Thompson’s resignation. The German Pirate Party were political ingenues and it cost them when it came to Bundestag elections. If I were Big K, I’d get some professional advisors in to prevent the Internet Party going similarly pear-shaped. However, speaking of the German Pirate Party, they did spectacularly well in Berlin. Which is a fascinating angle- would the nearest equivalent be Wellington or Auckland here, one wonders?